The Truth About the Lost Boys
by PeaceHeather
Summary: One-shot, in which Hook and Emma converse and Emma learns what Peter Pan and the Lost Boys were really like. This was an idea that hit me one night and wouldn't let go. Will most likely end up being completely different from whatever the show's writers tell us. For some reason, I choose to blame/credit Neil Gaiman for the places my mind went with this piece.


"It isn't like that at all," he said, unusually somber.

"Well, you definitely don't dress like in the stories," she began, but stopped when she saw the expression on his face. It wasn't anger, he wasn't irritated with her poking fun; this was something darker, something that ran deep.

"You mean you're not really the villain," she said cautiously. "Or… your fights with Peter didn't really go that way?" But he just shook his head and was silent for a long moment. There was a faraway look in his eyes, and old memories sketched themselves across his face, his eyebrows, the set of his mouth.

"Tell me," she said finally.

Killian glanced at her once, then away again, and nodded minutely. Took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I will not speak of Pan," he said quietly. "Save only to give you my speculation, that when magic left your world, the gods themselves had no choice but to flee or be annihilated; and that the name of one particular god is also the source of our words 'panic' and 'pandemonium'. He is and always was a wild creature, not to be tamed or befriended save when it amuses him to humor mere mortals; but one must never, ever forget that it is humor. It is an act, a charade, and one that he will drop the instant he grows bored of it."

Emma blinked. "Are you saying –" she blurted, but he stopped her with a look.

"It's only speculation, as I said," he replied. "But for what it may be worth to you, I believe it to be true."

"And the Lost Boys?" she asked, unnerved now. Uncertain she really wanted the answer. "What about them?"

"The Lost Boys…" he mused. "Well. You've told me that in your world I and my compatriots are merely characters in the tales told to children, yes? No doubt the Lost Boys who appear in your tales are like your version of the Wild One – watered-down and prettified to the point where almost nothing of the original truth remains. Let me guess – since these tales you speak of are meant for children, perhaps your lost boys are simply children themselves? Adorable, scruffy misfits who simply need a little mothering, a little guidance, to become good little boys once more?" His lip quirked, almost a smile, but his eyes held nothing like amusement.

"Something like that…"she said.

"Would that it were possible, my dove, but no," he said. What little smile was on his face faded. "Your tales diminish entirely the meaning of what they are."

"I don't understand."

"They are _Lost_, Emma," he said; "cast aside, misplaced, and entirely forgotten, until they are annihilated in the most precise sense – they are, quite literally, made into nothing. They cease to exist in the lands whence they were born, and that is how they come to be in Neverland. And once lost, they can never be found again; never, do you understand? It is why the realm is called Neverland in the first place. They are gone from our worlds, never to return, nor even to be remembered; lost, never to be found."

He turned to face her now, the expression on his face difficult to read, his voice low and heavy with suppressed emotions. "And being lost, they themselves have nothing to lose. There is _nothing_ they will not do to get what they want; no atrocity they will not commit, no depravity to which they will not sink. They are vicious, and cruel, and inventive with it. They laugh in the face of their victims' suffering, and I mean that literally as well – I've seen them fascinated by blood, watched them laugh and taste the tears of those unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. They think the faces made by a man in mortal agony are _funny_, Emma, I've heard them –" He paused, took a shaky breath. "I've heard them demand, _do it again, do it again_. You aren't screaming right, that wasn't loud enough; do it again." He closed his eyes and shuddered, as Emma felt sick. "No amount of mothering or care can bring them back from where they have gone. They are Lost beyond recovering. It isn't simply _how_ they are… it's _what_ they are."

Emma swallowed convulsively, hating her mind for trying to give her an image of Henry reduced to… no. No, she wouldn't even let herself _think_ that.

"But – but they're just kids," she whispered.

"Children?" he said. Killian made a noise that would have been a scoff, if it hadn't carried so much pain, sadness, remembered horror. "No," he said. "Boys, yes, but that only means that they are not yet men. And, Neverland being what it is, they never will be. They will never outgrow their pain, never move beyond their desire to hurt others as they themselves were hurt. They are, eternally, just old enough to know how to be perfectly cruel, and just young enough to neither understand nor care about repercussions. About consequences. Just young enough to retain that complete selfishness that places them in the center of their own little universe, and allows them to utterly block out anything like empathy or compassion for their prey."

He fell silent. He kept his eyes turned out, over the water, but she could see him blinking, watch his throat as he swallowed.

In the stories, Captain Hook was the villain, a threat to the Lost Boys. But if they were like that… if they really were as he described them…

"You've killed them," she suddenly knew.

"Some of them, aye," he said, matter-of-factly. "There's no honor in it, but there it is. The end of it that I'm still alive, and most of my crew. And sometimes, I almost think it was a mercy to kill the little savages." Made that little noise again, almost a laugh, not quite a scoff. "That's what I tell myself, anyway," he said. "The dreaded pirate, the notorious Captain Hook, terror of the seas, murderer of children. A fine way to gain a reputation, isn't it?"

Before that moment, Emma had never particularly cared to be too close to Hook, physically, but then, she'd never imagined she would ever have seen him so… human. Stripped of his famed persona and his bravado and swagger, she could see the ordinary, fallible person underneath, and her fingers twitched with the desire to somehow offer him comfort. She even raised her hand, tentatively, but he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and tensed.

Emma put her hand in her pocket. "In the stories, Peter Pan is their leader," she said.

"No," said Hook, relaxing once more. "To be their leader he would have to find them, and then, presumably, to care what happened to them. He does neither. The Lost Boys remain lost. He has no reason to go looking for them; _they_ find _him_."

"So there's no connection at all?" she wondered.

"There is," he said thoughtfully. "Pan is not their leader, true; but he is their god. Wild, capricious, untamed – they strive to be like him. They want to be free, and innocent in the way of wild things, able to forget or to stop caring about their past lives."

Once again, Emma thought of Henry, and then for just the briefest flash, of herself.

"And they never will, right?" she asked.

Killian pulled his coat around him to ward off the chill.

"No," he said. "They never will."


End file.
